Apologies for the last message, it’s somewhere in my IPhone . I am had a Panasonic compact with 24x optical zoom which was lightweight, hung around my neck on a shortened strap, above the Swarovskis, leaving both hands free, didn’t catch on vegetation was easy to use for simple recording shots. BUT it had an almost useless manual focus so that instead of the head of the bird in back of the tree it focused on branches and leaves. It drowned in the humidity of West Papua, while taking pics of Wilsons BoP from a hide, I got one exposure of that incredible bird. A new Canon with super zoom on that trip also seized up. So does anyone actually know of (reading the specs on Camera Warehouse or talking to their experts ain’t enough) a lightweight humidity-proof compact with fast and precise manual focus on a 24x shake compensated lens? TIA Michael Sent from my iPhone
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Yes, it sounds like the weatherproof S1 is worth investigating. Some information about the manual focusing, gleaned from various web sites: “Manual focusing is activated by setting the Focus Mode menu option to Manual and using the rear command dial to set the distance, with the LCD display automatically zooming in on the subject to help you judge the sharpness. There’s a handy distance scale along the bottom of the LCD screen with a white bar indicating the the focusing distance. The S1 also offers a Focus Peak Highlight function with High and Low settings, which displays a white line around the subject when it’s in focus. This addition makes manual focusing on the S1 much more of a pleasure than a chore” “… but its EVF is uselessly tiny and low-res. Believe us, this is an EVF that immediately reminded us of the bad old days” “The textured rubber ring on the lens barrel itself is a deceptive design cue. Good luck trying to move it—it’s stationary, and not usable as a control of any kind. While it might be a nice extra bit to grab onto, if you’re expecting a manual focus or zoom ring, you’ll be immediately disappointed.” “Just above the thumb rest is a command dial that can be used for changing shutter speed and aperture as well as manually focusing the lens, among other things.” These tidbits make me think manual focusing might not be as much of a pain as usual, but might still be fiddly to activate. It’s not a feature most reviewers spend much time evaluating, so a read of a downloaded manual and a test in a shop might be necessary. The EVF is 920k dots, which seems fairly high compared to most, so the criticism of it above is intriguing. And of course even if it solves the humidity and focusing problems well, it might still take crappy pictures. Michael, you investigate this one, could you please let us know what you thought of it? Peter Shute Sent from my iPad On 25 Feb 2015, at 8:48 pm, Paul Taylor < birder@ozemail.com.aubirder@ozemail.com.au>> wrote: Possibly not “compact”, but the closest I could find: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6629384105/fujifilm-finepix-s1-is-worlds-first-weather-resistant-superzoom — -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Paul Taylor Veni, vidi, tici – birder@ozemail.com.au birder@ozemail.com.au> I came, I saw, I ticked.
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Hi Philip, No, not low-tech. However, it is easy to assume that a waterproof housing will protect against humidity, but that would only work if you loaded the camera into the housing in a low-humidity environment (such as very cold air conditioning). If you don’t do that, you are simply sealing humid air inside the housing with the camera, and the problem of humidity fogging the lens and/or the viewfinder will continue to occur. Paul Dodd Docklands, Victoria —–Original Message—– Philip Veerman Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 3:04 PM This is probably a bit too low-tech and surely those interested would know. On my recent (last month) boat trip at Palawan island, Philippines, the tour company hires out waterproof camera holders to tourists. These are plastic full covers that allow you to put your little compact camera underwater to take photos of fish etc. They have different sizes to fit the various models of these cameras. My little camera survived fine. But this is not a birding camera. Philip —–Original Message—– Peter Shute Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 12:57 PM Cc: birding-aus@birding-aus.org I wonder if it would be possible to build (or buy?) and waterproof case for a long zoom compact. Perhaps a commercial underwater case with a tube for the lens glued to the front? The challenge would be to make it small and light enough to not be unwieldy. It doesn’t solve the manual focus problem though. Peter Shute
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Thanks Graeme, I was going to mention that rig too. I agree, it sounds to me like you’re after something beyond a basic point-and-shoot, Michael. I use a full Nikon kit with big lenses, but you certainly can’t lug them around easily. However, I also own a Nikon 1 V2 with the 70-300mm lens and it is quite amazing. As Graeme says, it has an equivalent focal length of more than 800mm. It also shoots stills at up to 60 frames per second, which is, of course, faster than most video! If I have one objection to the Nikon 1, it is that with the small sensor images can be noisy. See the following link for some images made with this setup. Please note, I took these photos purely to test out the capabilities of the camera and lens, so they’re not particularly amazing photographs: http://paul.angrybluecat.com/Trips-and-Locations/2014/Portland-Dec-2014/ I did shoot the pelagic the following day using this setup and I must say that even shooting at 15 frames per second was incredible for birds in flight (sorry, I have not got around to processing and publishing those shots yet). The electronic viewfinder is acceptable on the Nikon, and there are facilities to assist with manual focus. The Nikon 1 lenses all seem to have manual focus rings. I did purchase the adapter to allow “big” Nikon lenses to be mounted to the Nikon 1. I have tried a few lenses, including my big 600mm f/4 lens (giving an effective focal length of 1620mm), but have not managed to make any acceptable images. Perhaps I’ll try some more, but my current thoughts are not to bother with that. The Nikon 1 is available in a waterproof model – the AW1. I took one of those snorkelling, and it worked reasonably well. However, it lacks the electronic viewfinder, so I wouldn’t recommend it as your main camera. As Graeme said, the Nikon 1 setup is not cheap. The V2 is $399 with an 11-27.5mm (30-75mm equivalent). The 70-300mm is a little north of $1000. Paul Dodd Docklands, Victoria —–Original Message—– Graeme Chapman Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 11:01 AM Cc: birding-aus@birding-aus.org Hello Michael, You clearly need a professional quality camera, not a lightweight compact. I suggest you have a look at a Nikon V2 or V3 with the latest 70-300mm lens which (at 300 mm) results in an equivalent focal length of over 800 mm. It won’t quite fit in your pocket but it is light, compact and well-built. Also roughly $2000 – you get what you pay for. Cheers Graeme
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Possibly not “compact”, but the closest I could find: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6629384105/fujifilm-finepix-s1-is-worlds-first-weather-resistant-superzoom — -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Paul Taylor Veni, vidi, tici – birder@ozemail.com.au I came, I saw, I ticked.
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This is probably a bit too low-tech and surely those interested would know. On my recent (last month) boat trip at Palawan island, Philippines, the tour company hires out waterproof camera holders to tourists. These are plastic full covers that allow you to put your little compact camera underwater to take photos of fish etc. They have different sizes to fit the various models of these cameras. My little camera survived fine. But this is not a birding camera. Philip —–Original Message—– Peter Shute Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 12:57 PM Cc: birding-aus@birding-aus.org I wonder if it would be possible to build (or buy?) and waterproof case for a long zoom compact. Perhaps a commercial underwater case with a tube for the lens glued to the front? The challenge would be to make it small and light enough to not be unwieldy. It doesn’t solve the manual focus problem though. Peter Shute
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I wonder if it would be possible to build (or buy?) and waterproof case for a long zoom compact. Perhaps a commercial underwater case with a tube for the lens glued to the front? The challenge would be to make it small and light enough to not be unwieldy. It doesn’t solve the manual focus problem though. Peter Shute
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Michael, I think you are looking for a beast that does not exist. All external zoom compacts are subject to humidity problems. The lens segment seals must be loose enough to allow the segments to slide over each other when zooming. Unfortunately these seals are not air tight, ad suck a little bit of that nice humid air into the body of the camera. I Have killed 2 cameras in the tropics, so far because of this. You can reduce the risk of your cameras death by humidity, by storing it in a good dry bag with plenty of silica gel when not using it in the field. The only really humidity & water proof cameras out there are compacts , unfortunately with rather short internal zooms (4 to 5 x). Cheers, Carl Clifford
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Michael, when you say the manual focus was useless, do you mean that it was difficult to operate, or that it was difficult to tell when it was focused? I think there are very few compacts, if any, that have a focus ring, so most require button pushing which is always awkward. Most, if not all, have insufficient resolution in the viewfinder to tell when they’re focused, although this may no longer be true. I suspect that your requirements might not be achievable in a compact camera. Have you looked at any of the small sensor, mirror less detachable lens cameras? Peter Shute Sent from my iPad
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